How to Grade Pokemon Cards with PSA

Presented By

Written by Giovanni

Table of Contents

WARNING:

IF YOU’RE MERELY IN THIS FOR PROFIT, THEN STOP READING AND GO GET A REAL JOB. THIS GUIDE IS NOT TO BE DISTRIBUTED TO SCAMMERS, TOXIC PERSONALITIES, PEOPLE WHO’VE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF YOUNG COLLECTORS, OR ANYONE WHO DOESN’T TRULY LOVE THE WORLD OF POKÉMON. ANY REPRODUCTION OF THIS GUIDE WITHOUT WRITTEN CONSENT IS PROHIBITED.

This guide is for informational purposes only. This guide provides no warranty or guarantee of the grades you will receive. This is meant to be educational and provide guidance as what to expect. Everyone who’s graded enough cards has stories of rare situations where strange grades are returned. For most of your submissions, you can use this guide as a reasonable expectation of what to expect. However, it comes down to the time and tools you invest to reviewing every card accurately.

Authors Notes

Thank you for reading Giovanni’s Grading Guide! I’m super excited to be a part of your journey to your first (or next) PSA submission. I’ve graded thousands of Pokémon cards with all sorts of grading companies and want to share my knowledge with you. I learned the hard way in the beginning and made many mistakes. Your first grading submission can seem daunting, especially if you are sending your childhood cards. I’ve watched every video out there about grading and some contain a lot of misinformation.

I’m writing this targeted at the people who have never submitted cards for grading before. If you are looking to grade your childhood cards, then this guide will demystify the process. For those who have submitted before, there will be details in here that can still help you get better grades. Over the years I’ve met other graders and learned some interesting tips & tricks. Everything from packaging to shipping your precious cards can be nerve-wracking for your first time. Have no fear as Giovanni, The King of Darkness, is here to shine the light into this confusing process. Consider this my “community service” for my past sins. A way of giving back to all my followers and the collector community. I wish I had something like this when I first started grading cards!

If you like this guide, here are a few ways to support Poke Master Center.

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This is the grading kit I sell along with this guide.

I wish you the best of luck with your journey to becoming a Pokémon Master.

         

Introduction

Submitting Pokémon cards to PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator) for grading can significantly increase their value, especially if they receive a high grade. This guide will walk you through the entire process from evaluating your cards, preparing them for submission, all the way to shipping off to PSA. Whether you are a beginner or an expert, this guide aims to provide detailed instructions so you can achieve the best possible grade for your Pokémon cards. I highly recommend reading this guide in its entirety before doing anything. You can watch my free videos as a visual reference but that only covers the basics. If you don’t like reading and want a super detailed video version of this guide, you will need to join the Patreon to get access to that exclusive video.

If at any time you have questions or input on details in this guide, email me at PokeMasterCenter@gmail.com

Why I use PSA 95% of the time

I’ve graded with a bunch of different companies like CGC, Beckett, and PSA. There are a ton of grading companies now and they all come nowhere to the value you can receive for a PSA graded copy. I’ve sworn off CGC because of their shady business practices. Although the cheaper price to grade can be alluring, I assure you CGC sucks. Old slabs with a blue label graded a 9.5 can be converted to their new 10 label. Allegedly, CGC told a big customer of theirs that this was going to happen before this information went public. This person went and preemptively bought up all the CGC 9.5s on the market to profit off this grading scale change. CGC now has a “Pristine 10” and a Mint 10 so they have 2 10s which I feel is designed to trick newbies into thinking they have a perfect card. Feel free to google “CGC Pokémon Scandal” and see for yourself. Even on the comic side of things, someone was able to swap out comics from slabs incorrectly sealed causing huge losses and lawsuits. Just stay away from small grading companies IMHO. Stick with PSA and Beckett unless you are less worried about profits and more about a grading companies services & offerings.

This guide only covers the submission process for PSA because they have been around the longest, have a solid track record, and will get you the most bang for your buck. That’s not to say PSA is perfect. I heard a story once where a gem mint 10 came back with the card mangled inside in the slab. My guess is the card got caught in the slabbing process and damaged at that point. These graders have quotas to meet and usually have 30 seconds per card. I’m sure on more expensive cards, they may spend more time looking it over. They may miss grade sometimes, but they are usually accurate. Two big reasons to go with PSA is their higher dollar values in most cases & their lifetime guarantee. The slab essentially has an insurance policy up to $250k that covers the graded cost of the card if it is later to be found as a fake or damage reappears from bad cleaning practices. The story I mentioned about the card being messed up in a gem mint 10 slab was later covered in full by PSA.

Using Beckett in Certain Cases

What about Beckett? They are also a great grading company but there are only ever two cases where I would consider submitting a card to Beckett.

1. The card is truly a perfect copy. This means it is near 50/50 centered on the front and back, no whitening, no scratches or surface damage, vibrant ink, no blurry text, edges are flat (not coming up), and corners are well rounded. This is what might have a chance to hit a “Black Label 10” which is the hardest grade to receive from any grading company. PSA 10s can have a few minor defects and still receive the gem mint label. It’s common to see a tiny white dot on the corner, slightly off-center, and other small blemishes on many gem mint 10s out there. The amount of Black Labels compared to PSA 10s is often much lower. These black label 10s are worth much more than a PSA 10. Take these pop reports as of July 21st 2024 on the recent Moonbreon chase card for example.

There are 123 Black Label 10 Moonbreons – Last one sold for 10k in 2023 but there’s a few on eBay where the seller is asking 9k

The PSA Pop report shows 12,365 PSA 10s which is wild.

That means there are 99% more PSA 10s then BGS BL 10s.

 

2. The other case to send a card to Beckett is if you didn’t like your grade with PSA and want to get a second opinion with sub-grades on the label. Sub-grades make it clear on what is wrong with a card by breaking down the grading into four categories. Centering, surface, corners, and edges. PSA doesn’t offer sub-grades, but they do have “grader notes” – more about that later.

BGS Subgrades are helpful for seeing where a card fell short. If you see one with 9.5s on everything, it might be worth a shot at a resubmission.

Shoutout to Mark from Germany for sharing this with me. He has been pretty lucky with crossover grading PSA to Beckett. As seen, PSA to BGS usually results in 1 grade higher. However, I’ve even taken BGS 9.5 and crossover graded to a PSA 10 (I fixed a corner with the pen tool which probably helped). Just take into consideration the price of the BGS Grade you think it will get vs. the PSA grade.

We will get more into resubmitting cards at the end of this guide.

Evaluating Your Pokémon Cards Before Submission

Work with your cards in a clean environment. Buy an air filter to remove dust from the air, create a clean working space, use a non-abrasive foam mat to lay your cards on, use rubber gloves, and have a quick storage plan in case something comes up or you need to take a break. By leaving your cards out, you open risk of kids/animals to destroy your cards. Keep liquids and “tippable” objects far away from the area where you will be working on your cards. Most importantly, do not get intoxicated or “high af” before working with your cards.

*Optional – A Crane air filter helps remove dust from your work area. Dust flying into your card savers right before submission will possibly hurt your grade.

Buy one here on amazon for $90~

One time I got trashed and worked on a 1st Edition Base Set Ninetales from my childhood. I just got into cleaning cards and was inexperienced. During that time, I wiped the back edges with a microfiber. I previously cleaned it with the card spray and the edges were “bubbled up” – What I didn’t know is if I just let it dry before wiping the edges, it would have been fine. As I cleaned the wet edges, paint chipped off. I added way more whitening to the card and reduced it from a possible 8 to a 7 which is hundreds of dollars in lost value. RIP Ninetales:

Bottom line, remove as many distractions as possible during these sessions. That means silent mode on the phone, put some chill music on, do this while the family is asleep, and if you really want; grab ONE cold one but keep it far away from your working area. Ever since my PTSD with Mrs. Ninetales, I prefer to be alert, alone, awake, and sober during these sessions to improve my chances of hitting the highest grades possible. You will make mistakes even with this guide so practice on base cards first before moving up to the bigger ones. I take my time with higher-end cards and still make mistakes. Less is more when it comes to cleaning cards. If a high-end card looks like a 10, I do as little as possible on my first submission so I can’t beat myself up over it if hits a 9. Then I’ll crack it, try a few more things, and then resubmit it without the guilt of damaging a card.

Card Cleaning

Cleaning cards is a contentious issue. PSA claims they will reject cards where they detect it has been cleaned with polish. Personally, I only have ever used Kurt’s card care kit because its battle tested. There are a bunch of other products on the market that are more “fillers” for holo scratches and I stay away from that stuff. The card spray and polish Kurt has is safe and I trust the product. I’ve graded tons of cards and have none kicked back as being altered. I can see some of these other untested products getting flagged. I don’t have any experience with those so I’m not sure what PSA does to detect polish, but they claim to be working on “advanced detection methods”. We shall see how that all shakes out. Better than cleaning is fixing corners and bent cards. Fixing bent corners are going to be your best chance at getting a grade bump. That will never be detectable so that is something to consider. If you see this as altering, well; that’s like your opinion man.

Gathering your cards

The first step is carefully removing the cards from your binder/top loader/sleeves. I recommend pulling them all out and putting them in sleeves/card savers. Then you can go one by one looking for damage to the cards. I don’t recommend having your card out raw unless you’re inspecting or cleaning it. Having your cards in a pile (in card savers) will help you count how many cards you have to see if you can hit the item minimum for a bulk submission. I’ve had the luxury of looking

Removing Cards from Old Binder Sheets

My binder was over 20 years old with the cards never being taken out since then. I noticed my cards were “sticking” to the binder sheets. Pulling them straight out of the binder sheets posed a lot of risks since some were not sleeved. I ended up taking the sheets out of the binder and using fine scissors to cut one side of the sheet completely off. That way I could easily pull the cards out without risking binder creases & whitening.

If your cards are “frozen” in the binder, carefully cut the rows out.

Cut one corner out of the left or right side of the sheet. Take your time.

Remove the card once the corner is open.

Removing Cards from Top Loaders

My common way of pulling cards out of top loaders is to just slightly “squeeze” the sides of the top loader to open it up and grabbing the sleeve then pulling on that. Don’t grab the card directly and pull that out as you risk scratching the card on the top loader on its way out. By taking out the sleeve with the card in it, it will be protected from the hard plastic of the top loader. The key here is to not squeeze the sides of the top loader too hard otherwise you risk “snapping” the top loader into a U shape therefore possibly bending your card. Once you get a grip of the sleeve, relieve pressure on the top loader and pull it out so some of the sleeve is sticking out of the top loader. Release the sides to flatten the top loader back to its normal shape and pull the sleeve straight out gently. If you keep squeezing the top loader open as you pull the card out, you could “pop” the top loader to a U shape and permanently crease your card before its all the way out.

I’ve seen people turning the top loader upside down or on its side and using a trusting motion to try and make the sleeved card come out. Problem with that is the card may come out but the sleeve stays in place and now its touching the top loader or worse the card shoots out onto the floor. If you’re really paranoid, cut a post-it note and use the sticky side to catch on to the sleeve in the top loader and pull the card out that way.

Removing Cards from Sleeves

If you’re dealing with a vintage card that’s been in the sleeve for years, especially if it was stored in the heat; you’ll want to use precision scissors to cut a corner of the sleeve out just like I showed with the binder. This will let you open the sleeve and let the card “breath”. If the sleeve is sticking to the card, you should put the sleeved card into a humidifier. This will help naturally separate the sleeve from the card. If you force the card out prematurely, you run the risk of chipping the paint on the way out. If it’s a modern card or cheap card, I would just see if you can open the sleeve and pull it out. Otherwise, easiest way is to just push up from the bottom of the sleeved card and push the card up/out of the sleeve. Use rubber gloves at this point to avoid putting fingerprints on the card if it’s a valuable card. Place your raw card on a soft foam mat once removed.

The chance you hit a PSA 10

            Ok, so the moment of truth. Is your card a 10!? Short answer, highly unlikely. Please don’t take this the wrong way. I felt the same way about my cards. My dad collected sports cards and was taught to sleeve my cards, but I put them in binders. Binders are notorious for indents, whitening, PokeMold, and scratching. Unless someone taught you as a kid to sleeve and top load a card then it most likely has damage. That is also is leaving out the likelihood of a card being centered well and undamaged coming out of the pack. I graded most of my valuable childhood cards and I only hit 2 PSA 10’s (1st ed jungle non-holo snorlax, and 1st ed jungle pikachu) most of the other cards came back 7s, 8s, and a handful of 9s. Could I have resubmitted the 9s and hit 10s eventually? Probably, I’m sure there are some 9s that if I looked at the corners, I could have used the pen-tool to fix them. I’ve sold most of them by now with a few cards I kept due to the sentimental value.

The reality of grading is if the card looks like a 10 to the untrained eye, it’s probably a 9. You need to know what you’re looking for and take the emotional attachment out of the equation. You’re more likely to hit PSA 10s on cards where the raw value is typically less than $40. Anything over $40 raw value, you will most likely have to keep resubmitting it till you get lucky with the right grader. All grading companies seem to have an unsaid rule with “Gem Mint 10” cards. If you get back a PSA 9/9.5 or a Beckett 9.5, that’s their way of saying “Keep resubmitting this and give us our cut of the 10 value” – It’s kind of crappy but that’s the reality of the situation. They are a business, and they want to capitalize on your cards along with you. Chase cards this is especially true, Charizards/Blastoise/Venusaur/Dragonite/Gengar/etc. are all highly scrutinized cards. A grader will take more time looking for something wrong with these cards than lower value cards. It almost might be a quota thing where they can’t be handing 10s out like candy. This is totally an unconfirmed conspiracy but just what I’ve heard. With all that out of the way, lets now take a close look at your card.

What cards do I grade?

Cards less than $20 raw are usually not worth the grading cost/time. If it’s a vintage card and its less than $20, or if it’s a liquid card like Pikachu then it could be a small profit. Take the cost of the card, plus the grading cost and look at PriceCharting.com or ebay sold listings for comps on what you think the grade will be. Don’t forget to account for eBay and other fees. Take into consideration that if it’s an odd card that people usually don’t search, or you see sales happening very rarely then you’ll have to fork over more for promoted listings to get ebay to push your card as sponsored ads. Usually 15-30% of the sold price will goto ebay. Then if you are doing free shipping, shipping supplies, etc. When it comes down to it, I only aim for cards above $40 raw value for modern. Vintage cards at $20 and above are usually worth it if it looks to be in good condition. Exceptions can be made for popular Pokémon as these cards are more “liquid” and sell quicker. This is obviously all my own opinion, and you can make exceptions in cases where the card is sentimental. For example, I had a card that I knew was my first trade as a kid and wanted to encapsulate the card to pass down to my kids eventually (I didn’t care about the monetary value).

Now let’s get to how we can pre-determine the grade of a card.

 

Tools needed to evaluate your cards

You can view the entire tool list on my Amazon Ideas List Here

You don’t need all of these tools to get started. If you don’t have the budget, just start with the items listed below as required.

Wide Card Sleeves

* Required

I prefer a wide sleeve and usually cut one corner of the sleeve to make removing the card easier. Keep them closed so dust doesn’t get in the sleeves. Only pull one out once you have the card ready. PSA will let you use any see thru sleeves you want but I choose these for their size and quality. 

Card Savers

* Required

I stick with “Cardboard Gold” Card Saver I brand, but any brand is acceptable. Card savers are also a great way to ship a card in an envelope. When you send your cards in for submission, PSA won’t be shipping them back to you. From what I’ve heard, they cut open the card savers when taking the card out so pull tabs aren’t necessary for PSA.

 

5x or 10x Desktop Magnifying Glass

Optional

Used to scan the card for general flaws such as indents, holo scratches, print issues, water damage, creases, etc. This is a great tool to use in the dark when you’re going through your cards. If you don’t have any other hands free magnification then this is a perfect tool to add to your kit.

Bright, consistent light source

Optional

The magnifying glass I use has a built-in light but having a high output light is good for looking at the holo and surface of a card from multiple angles to catch flaws. These also make for great lighting if you make content or take pictures of cards for sale.

Mini Black Light Flashlight

Optional

A black light is a great tool to quickly scan the card for whitening and scratches. It can be used to see if the light bleeds through the card indicating it’s a fake. Lastly it can point out signs of altering on a card. If you buy expensive pokemon cards at trade shows, I recommend bringing this to scan the card.

Soft, clean cloth

Optional

I’ve experimented with all kinds of cloths to clean cards. Out of them all, this is the best one for not damaging the card. Using any cloth on holo should be serious business. One tiny piece of something can get caught between the card and the cloth then wreck the holo with scratches. Ensure you remove any loose materials from the card and nothing on the cloth before using.

Rubber disposable gloves

Optional

Used for handling high dollar cards to avoid putting fingerprints on it. They show up very easily on the back and holo part of the card. You can wipe fingerprints off safely before submitting. These are useful in many situations so having a box of rubber gloves is always a good idea.

20x or 40x Jewelers Loupe

Optional

When I use the desktop magnifier and see a possible issue, I use a higher magnification to see what exactly is wrong with the card. This jewelers loupe is a great tool for zooming into the card a bit more. It’s also nice to bring to card shows since it comes with a built in light and is very portable.

Digital Caliper

Optional

Later we will cover how to use a caliper to measure the centering of a pokemon card. There are other card centering tools that also work but they are tricky to use and when you need precision if it is border line centered, then this tool will let you figure it out down to a percentage. This method and formula to find centering can be found later in this guide.

Evaluating your cards

While looking for issues with your card, I highly recommend coping my Pokemon Grading Spreadsheet here. It has the name of the card, the grade you guess it will get, notes about the imperfections you found on the card, and the actual grade it gets with PSA. This will help sharpen your skills to correctly guess the cards grade. If you get a card wrong, then reevaluate the card to see what you may have missed. Let’s say the card you thought was a 9 got a 7. This is probably because you missed a small indent, crease, or corner coming up. Getting better at accurately pre-grading raw cards will give you an advantage as a buyer. If it doesn’t match your guess, give the card another look over.

You’ll learn a lot from taking pictures and taking notes of what you missed.

Now let’s look at the important aspects you must review on your card.

Surface

Look for scratches, print lines, and any other imperfections. Use a magnifying glass and a bright light to examine the surface thoroughly. If your card has a scratch or a print line, that will land you a PSA 9 even if everything else is perfect about the card. If it has excessive scratches or multiple print lines, that may ding it more than one point. Take a look at the tabbed examples below on what to look for in the holo part of the card.

Scratches are common on holo vintage cards. Cards like Base Set Chansey and Jungle Vaporeon in a PSA 10 are wildly expensive due to the holo being so susceptible to scratching and print lines.

This Machamp got a big ol’ vertical print line running up it ☹

These print lines are considered “imperfections” and will ding your grade.

Look for Horizontal or Vertical print lines. They look like a perfectly straight line that goes the full length of the holo layer. Most of these are from the wheels that move the sheets through the printing process.

Excessively damaged cards can sometimes be graded as “Authentic” but also can be rejected as “Not gradable” if parts of the card are missing or it is not identifiable.

Damaged Surfaces

A flat card is what you want sent to PSA. Vintage cards often exhibit a lot of issues when it comes to this type of damage. Most vintage holo cards have a natural bend to it. You should get the card as flat as possible before submission. Bends, dents, indents, and dings can all be reduced but in some cases, not removed. Checkout the types of surface issues you have have in the tabbed panel below.

Indents big and small should be looked for. Most PSA 5, 6, and 7s suffer from some indent if at first glance the card seems fine. There are ways to reduce indents, but the process is time-intensive.

Creases can happen in the middle of a card when taken out incorrectly. Depending on the size, you’ll get anywhere from a PSA 7 for tiny creases, PSA 5 for larger ones, and PSA 1 if it goes all the way across the card.

Water damage is a huge issue for grading and the damage is irreversible. A card with even dime size of water damage can push you down to a PSA 5. If it covers half or more of the card, it will push it to a PSA 3 or lower.

 

Unless it’s just a small corner on a card; ripped cards will be returned to you as “not gradable“. 

Once you bend a holo card in half, it will “bubble up” on the holo.

There is no known way to fix this.

Ensure there are no print defects such as blurry images or misaligned text. Lookout for “print lines” on the front and back. Check the color of the card to ensure it doesn’t look faded.

No, this picture isn’t a blurry photo, that’s the actual card! Blurry text is rare to see but can happen. Some consider these error cards. This will not hit a gem mint grade and might get the OF (Out of Focus) Qualifier. More about qualifiers in a bit.

This doduo has “additional ink” on its belly and I had 3 copies of this card all with the same error. If the grader compares artwork to another 10 or the ink is obvious such as black/blue/red dot on the card, it will most likely not hit a gem mint.

   

“Hickeys” can sometimes be found on the front and backs in various colors. Some consider this an error and more valuable. From a grading standpoint, this would not be good and would negatively affect the grade. Only in the case where PSA recognizes the error as its own PSA Label, would it be ignored.

Edges

Inspect the edges for any whitening, dings, or fraying. Clean, sharp edges are crucial for a high grade. Whitening will knock the grade down a point or more depending on the amount. If there is excessive whitening on all edges and deep into the card, it could push it into the PSA 7’s or lower. Tiny creases that don’t exceed beyond the blue border usually net a 7. If it goes beyond that or there is more than one crease, you’re in the PSA 6 range. If there a crease well into the card, you’re looking at a PSA 5 or much lower depending on the length.

Whitening is common, the blue paint is very fragile.

Use the Mini Black Light Flashlight to shine on the back of the card and these white spots will stand out.

Tiny creases are almost always an automatic 7 or even lower if it is visible from the front.

A crease that goes from the edge of the card beyond the border starts the push the card into the PSA 5/6 grade. If the crease is small enough, there are methods to highly reduce the visibility of it.

Corners

Check all four corners for any signs of wear, dings, or fraying. Corners must be well rounded. They should be even on all 4 corners and free from damage. You can get away with a small white dot on the corner but if there are more than 2 of them, your chances diminish. All 4 corners should have the same “roundness” to them all. However, the “pitch” into the edge of the card can sometimes exhibit a “grading” to them into the edge of the card off the round corner and still net a PSA 10. See the picture below for what I mean.

Bent corners are common. By flattening these before submission, you can improve your chances of jumping a grade.

This PSA 10 card has some slight factory miscut on the right side. It doesn’t come off the round corner in a perfect 90 degree angle but rather gradually goes into the edge.

See how perfect these round corners are? This is what you want to see for a solid grade.

This PSA 10 has a few white dots on the card itself, but they are pin dots. There are only 2 white dots on this PSA 10, had there been one more elsewhere, it could have been a PSA 9. Any whitening over the size of a pin dot is bad and might knock it down to a PSA 9 grade.

‘Centering

The borders should be evenly spaced on both front and back. PSA allows minor centering imperfections for Gem Mint 10, typically no worse than 55/45 on the front and 60/40 on the back. There have been stories about off center cards above these thresholds getting PSA 10s but most of those were graded before 2022 – after that PSA raised their centering standards more inline with the competition (BGS/CGC). I’ve seen a Beckett black label 10 moonbreon with an off center back but the front was flawless and centered perfectly. Again, it really comes down to how much the grader you got assigned and how much they weigh centering into the grade. Most do see this as a very important aspect of a “perfect card” and will hold you to the 55/45 standard.

Rule of thumb for PSA 10 centering: 55/45 on the front and 60/40 on the back. Although there have been reports of 60/40 on the front and 75/25 on the back getting PSA 10s but I suspect these are cheap cards that PSA doesn’t mind handing out 10s for.

This Clefairy is very off center. If everything else is perfect about the card except the centering on the front then that would be enough to make it a PSA 9. Graders usually worry more about the front than the back of the card. That means if the front is centered but the back is not, you may have a chance at a 10 with the right grader.

There are such things as Pokemon Card Centering Tools but I find them to be much less accurate than using the caliper explained below. However, if you are a casual grader, these centering tools may suffice. After awhile, you’ll be able to just look at a card and know if it’s a decent shot at a 10 for centering or not. When it’s on the edge of 55/45, thats usually when I bust the caliper out.

How to calculate centering percentages

Using a Digital Caliper you can do the math to figure out the centering percentages.

Measure the left and right boarder with the caliper. Write the numbers down and then total them. Then run a percentage formula to come up with the left center percentage.

Left + Right = Total

(Left ÷ Total) x 100 = Left Percentage

Example.

Left = 3.1mm 

Right = 2.7mm

Total = 5.8mm

(3.1 ÷ 5.8) x 100 = 46.60%

Left 53.4% – Right 46.60%

Repeat these steps on the top/bottom and back of the card also.

We are looking to keep the number above 45% on the front for a good grade. The back you can get away with 40% or above.

The closer you have to 50/50, the chance of your gem mint status rises. You can usually see if its off center with the naked eye but using this method can give you a solid measurement in the case where you aren’t sure.

How To Legit Check Pokemon Cards

When buying Pokemon cards, you should always legit check them. Catching signs of altering will save you a lot of headache when grading also. You don’t ever want to have a card get kicked back as altered. My conspiracy theory is that PSA puts a note in their system that an altered card has come from you and now they may look at your cards in more detail going forward. Here is how you can check if a pokemon card has been altered or if it’s fake:

  • Look for a black ink layer in the middle of the card on its side. This is by far the best way to legit check any pokemon card.
  • Use a small flashlight to see if it shines through the card. Cheap fakes are thin and you can see light bleed through it.
  • Compare the size of the card to another known pack fresh card to check for signs of trimming. People have been busted for trimming one side of a card to make the appearance of the borders look more centered.
  • Look for blue felt marker on the back. Check the side edges of the card. That is where you would see blue marker “bleeding” into the white middle layer.
  • Smell the card for chemical or “cigar box” smells. Thats a sign that repair was possibly made. Also checking the side of the card (edge) for polish is another way to spot it. The black ink line on the edge of the card would be covered by polish that wasn’t properly cleaned off the card. In this instance, it might still be ok to purchase the card if it’s not obvious.

Know your PSA Grades

Before you start guessing the grade of the card. Let’s look at a bunch of cards from PSA 1 all the way to a PSA 10. This will help you visually understand what each grade looks like.

Click on the boxes below to expand for more information.

AA – Authentic Altered

This means that while PSA is certifying that the item is genuine, due to the existence of alterations, the item cannot receive a numerical grade. The term altered may mean that the card shows evidence of one or more of the following: trimming, recoloring, restoration, and/or cleaning. Items receiving the “Authentic Altered” designation, in our opinion, are genuine with the presence of some type of alteration. This designation is used on a case-by-case basis, space permitting, and “AA” must be listed on the submission form as the desired minimum grade. The “Authentic Altered” designation is to be considered interchangeable with “Authentic” only and of equal value for the purposes of the PSA Financial Grade Guarantee. You will be charged the applicable grading fee in this instance.

A – Authentic

This means that PSA is only certifying that the item is genuine, without a numerical grade. This may be due to the existence of an alteration, one with malice or otherwise, a major defect or the original submitter may have requested that PSA encapsulate the card without a grade. The “Authentic” label means that the item, in our opinion, is real but nothing more. The “Authentic” only designation is to be considered interchangeable with “Authentic Altered” and of equal value for the purposes of the PSA Financial Grade Guarantee. You will be charged the applicable grading fee in this instance.

Half-Point Grades

Cards that exhibit high-end qualities within each particular grade, between PSA 2 and PSA 9, may achieve a half-point increase. While PSA graders will evaluate all of the attributes possessed by a card in order to determine if the card may be eligible, there will be a clear focus on centering.

PSA 1 – Poor

A PSA 1 will exhibit many of the same qualities of a PSA 1.5 but the defects may have advanced to such a serious stage that the eye appeal of the card has nearly vanished in its entirety. A Poor card may be missing one or two small pieces, exhibit major creasing that nearly breaks through all the layers of cardboard or it may contain extreme discoloration or dirtiness throughout that may make it difficult to identify the issue or content of the card on either the front or back. A card of this nature may also show noticeable warping or another type of destructive defect. Cards bent in half are also going to knock it down to a 1 regardless of surface condition.

PSA 1.5

A PSA 1.5 card’s corners will show extreme wear, possibly affecting framing of the picture. The surface of the card will show advanced stages of wear, including scuffing, scratching, pitting, chipping and staining. The picture will possibly be quite out-of-register and the borders may have become brown and dirty. The card may have one or more heavy creases. In order to achieve a Fair grade, a card must be fully intact. Even though the card may be heavily worn, it cannot achieve this grade if it is missing solid pieces of the card as a result of a major tear, etc. This would include damage such as the removal of the back layer of the card or an entire corner. The centering must be approximately 90/10 or better on the front and back.

I’d love to crack this and clean off all the PokeMold on the back. This could get the 2.

PSA 2 – Good

 A PSA 2 card’s corners show accelerated rounding and surface wear is starting to become obvious. A good card may have scratching, scuffing, light staining, or chipping of enamel on obverse. There may be several creases. Original gloss may be completely absent. Card may show considerable discoloration. Centering must be 90/10 or better on the front and back.

PSA 3 – Very Good

A PSA 3 card reveals some rounding of the corners, though not extreme. Some surface wear will be apparent, along with possible light scuffing or light scratches. Focus may be somewhat off-register and edges may exhibit noticeable wear. Much, but not all, of the card’s original gloss will be lost. Borders may be somewhat yellowed and/or discolored. A crease may be visible. Printing defects are possible. Slight stain may show on obverse and wax staining on reverse may be more prominent. Centering must be 90/10 or better on the front and back.

This zard had a crease on the back left and got delt a pretty rough grade.

Off-center, scratches on the front, and a good amount of whitening pushed this to a 3.

PSA 4 – Very Good/Excellent

A PSA 4 card’s corners may be slightly rounded. Surface wear is noticeable but modest. The card may have light scuffing or light scratches. Some original gloss will be retained. Borders may be slightly off-white. A light crease may be visible. Centering must be 85/15 or better on the front and 90/10 or better on the back.

Scratching on the front, edge wear, some strange dot on the front right, and whitening netted this a 4. Cleaning that dot on the front and polishing this might have got it to a 5.

PSA 5 – Excellent

On PSA 5 cards, very minor rounding of the corners is becoming evident. Surface wear or printing defects are more visible. There may be minor chipping on edges. Loss of original gloss will be more apparent. Focus of picture may be slightly out-of-register. Several light scratches may be visible upon close inspection, but do not detract from the appeal of the card. Card may show some off-whiteness of borders. Centering must be 85/15 or better on the front and 90/10 or better on the back.

Off center front and back, scratching, and whitening on edges/middle. Some spot on the back above the “M” at the top, could have been cleaned off.

PSA 6 – Excellent/Near Mint

A PSA 6 card may have visible surface wear or a printing defect which does not detract from its overall appeal. A very light scratch may be detected only upon close inspection. Corners may have slightly graduated fraying. Picture focus may be slightly out-of-register. Card may show some loss of original gloss, may have minor wax stain on reverse, may exhibit very slight notching on edges and may also show some off-whiteness on borders. Centering must be 80/20 or better on the front and 90/10 or better on the reverse.

Too bad its off centered. Its in decent shape for a 6!

PSA 7 – Near Mint

A PSA 7 is a card with just a slight surface wear visible upon close inspection. There may be slight fraying on some corners. Picture focus may be slightly out-of-register. A minor printing blemish is acceptable. Slight wax staining is acceptable on the back of the card only. Most of the original gloss is retained. Centering must be approximately 70/30 to 75/25 or better on the front and 90/10 or better on the back.

Off centering, whitening, and there’s gotta be a small crease or corner coming up on this.

PSA 8 – Near Mint/Mint

A PSA 8 is a super high-end card that appears PSA 9 at first glance, but upon closer inspection, the card can exhibit the following: a very slight wax stain on reverse, slightest fraying at one or two corners, a minor printing imperfection, and/or slightly off-white borders. Centering must be approximately 65/35 to 70/30 or better on the front and 90/10 or better on the reverse.

Really great surface on this one and very little edge wear. The centering really effected this one.

PSA 9 – Mint

A PSA 9 is a superb condition card that exhibits only one of the following minor flaws: a very slight wax stain on reverse, a minor printing imperfection or slightly off-white borders. Centering must be approximately 60/40 to 65/35 or better on the front and 90/10 or better on the reverse.

Centering is good, but I see some vertical print lines or scratches. Couple dots on the back will net this a 9. Solid card otherwise. No paint/edge wear, clear text, no dings, very clean other than the holo.

Look at this beauty! I think there are some scratches when you zoom into the holo. 3 white dots on the back on the right side. Other than that, maybe the slight off-center is what got this to a 9. If I held this card in hand and inspected the holo, didn’t see any scratches, then this might be a crack/resubmit candidate to try for the 10. I’d have to measure the borders on the front too, it might be off-center to the bottom.

PSA 10 – Gem Mint

A PSA 10 card is a virtually perfect card. Attributes include four perfectly sharp corners, sharp focus and full original gloss. A PSA 10 card must be free of staining of any kind, but an allowance may be made for a slight printing imperfection, if it doesn’t impair the overall appeal of the card. The image must be centered on the card within a tolerance not to exceed approximately 55/45 to 60/40 percent on the front, and 75/25 percent on the reverse.

This card is unreal. This card would probably have been a black label candidate if I had it raw. Still a solid grade and given the pop, you control the market and can probably fetch close to what you would get for a black label anyway.

This copy unlike the previous has a few flaws from what I can see. Mind you some of this may be dust but going off the pictures, the back shows some pin dot whitening on the corners and surface. I’m also seeing a dot on the front bottom right. Not sure if that’s on the card or something on the slab. Either way, note the centering is not as perfect as the last 10. It was deemed to be centered enough and there were probably no scratches on the holo so this got the grail grade. This is one of those cards that would get a 9 with most graders until you got the grader who used the 60/40 rule for the front centering vs. the more conservative 55/45 rule.

What are “Qualifiers”?

In some cases, a card will be designated with a qualifier. A “qualified” card is a card that meets all the criteria for a particular grade but fails the standard in one area. For example, a card which exhibits all the qualities of a NM-MT 8, but is 90/10 centered left to right, will receive a grade of NM-MT 8oc. The “OC” stands for off-center. Here is a brief list of qualifiers: OC (Off-center), ST (stain), PD (Print Defect), OF (Out of Focus), MC (Miscut), and MK (Marks).

OC (Off-center)

Cards that are off center will either by designated “OC” or will have a numerical grade that reflects the minimum centering allowed for the grade. PSA determines centering by comparing the measurements of the borders from left to right and top to bottom. The centering is designated as the percent of difference at the most off-center part of the card. A 5% leeway is given to the front centering minimum standards for cards which grade PSA 7 or better. For example, a card that meets all of the other requirements for PSA 9 and measures 60/40 off-center on the front automatically meets the PSA front centering standards for PSA 9. If a card meets all of the other requirements for PSA 9 and measures 65/35 off-center on the front, it may be deemed to meet the PSA front centering standards for PSA 9 if the eye appeal of the card is good.

Centering on this got all messed up during the cutting process. It still netted the 9 but would never hit the 10.

ST (Stain)

Cards with staining will either by designated “ST” or will have a numerical grade that reflects the minimum staining allowed for the grade.

This has some issues on the top left that looks like holo bleed or it could be an oil stain. I also see signs this might have adhesive or sticky stuff on it. This netted the rare “Stain” qualifier. Rare but not for the right reasons.

MC (Miscut)

Any and all cards that exhibit an atypical cut for the issue, which may result in portions of the subject card being cut off or more than one card being visible, will be designated “MC.”

When the off-centering is so bad that one border isn’t even visible, it will net the MC qualifier. You’ll also see the “black dots” on these cards which were used for calibration on the cutting machine. Some people love these errors and could net you more value in some cases. The market is small for these sort of collectors so you may have to sit on it.

Miscut with two visible cards

Be careful what you attempt to submit for the MC qualifier. Some cases where another card is visible, PSA can reject it. This is why CGC is popular for errors because they will holder anything. In these cases, I’d just try to sell it raw.

This Topps card is a really cool miscut but I don’t think PSA likes grading cards when two characters are visible. The question would come in, which name we put on the label, was this hand cut, etc. They opt to just kick these errors back to be safe.

PD (Print Defect)

Cards with printing defects will either be designated “PD” or will have a numerical grade that reflects the minimum print defects allowed for the grade.

This has the known error of “cigar stain” but the grader put the “PD” qualifier on it. Has the submitter searched on PSA for the error label of this card, it would have gotten the correct error label and no “PD” qualifier added.

OF (Out of Focus)

Cards that are out of focus or out of register with either be designated “OF” or will have a numerical grade that reflects the minimum focus standards allowed for the grade.

I couldn’t even find a Pokémon example of an “OF” qualifier card. Very bizarre that I can’t find one anywhere. Maybe PSA doesn’t give OF on Pokémon or it’s that rare. It just means the ink layers got shifted during the printing process and didn’t align right.

MK (Marks)

Any and all cards with writing, ink marks, pencil marks, etc. or evidence of the impression left from the act of writing will be designated “MK.”

This Venusaur suffered from someone taking a sharpie to its No. in the bottom right. PSA will only do this if the marking is without malicious intent. Meaning signs of altering such as a blue felt marker on the back of the card to hide whitening, paint matching, etc. Check for signs of alteration before you buy any card. Use a black-light to spot these alterations.

Hand cut cards

Just a quick note to dispel what PSA will grade when the card is cut by hand. If the only way to get the card was to get it from an uncut sheet then they will grade it. An example would be a pokemon toy wishes magazine card which were meant to be hand cut from the magazine itself. A normal factory cut version of the card was never issued.

H/C here meaning “Hand Cut”

Pre-grading your cards

After years of doing this, I am still not 100% accurate on my pre-grades. They can come in lower or higher but most of the time I’m on the money or very close. If you have a card you want to grade and there are a lot of them listed on ebay, try to find a card in a similar condition to yours. This will help you gauge what grade it might get. If it’s a cheap card, your chances of a 10 are much greater than dealing with a high-end card (trust me on this point). When you are pre-grading your cards, you need to take that into account. They are going to be a lot more strict on letting things slide with a raw $200 card vs. a $20 card.

Be more conservative with your pre-grades on chase cards and looser with the lower-end stuff. Take more time on reviewing the card for defects on chase cards vs. the lower-end cards just like PSA would. Graders usually spend 30 seconds per card but if it’s a serious card, they will take their time making sure nothing is missed. It is said there is a “2nd person” that QAs the grade it got but I’ve never seen a card get kicked back at this step. I’m pretty sure at that step, the QA people are just glancing at the card for a split second to make sure it’s not an obvious mis-grade.

The big things to keep in mind is centering is key for a gem mint 10. Also, damage to the front is going to knock more points off than on the back of the card.

Here is a loose formula you can follow for pre-grading:

Centering:

  • Front/Back Off Center (Not between 50/50 and 55/45) -1 point (-2 points if both front & back are very off center)
  • Border not showing (Miscut) -2 points
  • Diamond Cut Card (Printing is shifted diagonally slightly) -1 point

Bends/Creases:

  • Most are an automatic PSA 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 or 1 depending on severity.
  • Small Crease (under 0.5 cm) Visible on Back -3 points (-5 if visible on the front)
  • Medium Crease (under 1.5 cm) through back of the card -5 points (-6 if it’s on the front)
  • Full Crease all the way through the back of the card -7 points (-9 if visible on the front)
  • Small Bent Corner Visible on Back -3 points (-1 for an additional bent corner)
  • Floded / Lifted Corners Visible on Front -3 points (-5 if big)
  • Small Binder Dent -2 points (-4 if big)

Indents:

  • Super small indent -1 point (-1 for additional indents)
  • Medium indent -3 points
  • Large indent -5 points or more

Surface:

  • Super small single scratch may be no deduction
  • 1/4 inch scratch or more -1 point
  • Too many scratches on holo to count -3 points
  • Front has scratches exposing holo silver layer or white layer -1 point
  • Front has PokeMold or other dust/finger prints -1 point
  • Back has minor whitening (3 to 5 dots) -1 point
  • Back has moderate whitening (6 to 10 dots) -2 points
  • Back has major whitening (11 dots or lots of wear) -3 or more points

Corners:

  • Corner coming up (dented) -3 points
  • Corner not rounded correctly -1 point
  • Obvious corner miscut -1 point
  • Whitening over the size of a pin dot -1 point

Edges:

  • Whitening on the edge -1 point
  • Whitening on two sides of the card -2 points
  • Whitening on all sides of the card -3 or more points
  • White “fuzz” coming off the card on edges can suffer from -1 point
  • A ding on an edge can suffer from a -3 point or more deduction depending on size of the damage.

Don’t take this as a strict formula in the sense of deducting for each flaw. Take the case where there is a tiny crease and some whitening. The crease already put it at a 7 and since that alone bumps it down so much, it comes with some leniency on the whitening. Reviewing slabs on eBay with the same damage will give you a better idea of what the range of grades could be.

If any piece of the card is missing or print layer torn off, automatic PSA 1 or even get rejected if it’s substantial. You can find PSA 2 or 3s with lots of wear/whitening but those tend to have no creases or other issues.

Guessing 8, 9, 10 usually is easier than trying to guess the 2 through 7 range. Cards in that lower range tend to vary depending on the grader. If it hits a PSA 1, it will probably always regrade as a 1. Getting a bump in a grade when it’s a PSA 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 is what I usually aim for when cracking slabs but there’s gotta be something I can clean/fix for me to do it. The bump from 9 to 10 is really challenging though and may require multiple resubmissions. Grader notes is what comes in handy to gut check what you missed. More on that in the next section!

Card Cleaning/Restoration Before Submission

Cleaning and restoring deserves its own guide. It’s just too many details to cover here. I’ll eventually create another guide/video on just that alone. I’m sorry but you can always checkout my YouTube or Instagram for methods previously covered.

Preparing Your PSA Submission

After you have cleaned and pre-graded your card, now it’s time to prepare them for submission. Let’s first get our card prepared for grading and then cover how to use the PSA website to create a submission. Lastly, we will cover how to ship them. For the packing/prep steps, PSA has a helpful video on what’s covered below.

Getting your cards ready

I like to use wide card sleeves so it’s easier to remove the card without damaging it. I also like to cut the corner of the sleeve. This makes taking the card in and out easy. 

Cut the corner of the sleeve off. This lets you open up the sleeve easier.

Put your card carefully into the sleeve.

Place the sleeved card into a Card Saver I

Final product! Now repeat for each card in your submission.

A quick note on Pull Tab Sleeves or “post it notes/etc” to make it easier to pull the card out. I wouldn’t use any “sticky pull tabs” on the sleeves. You can use pull tab sleeves for BGS/CGC but I wouldn’t use these for PSA. PSA has explicitly stated not to use sticky pull tabs since it covers the card since they have to scan the card before grading. This makes their jobs harder cause they have to manually remove that stuff before scanning. I’ve heard they just cut open the card saver when processing so a pull tab doesn’t really help much in that case.

Create your PSA Submission Online

Now that you have all your cards prepared in card savers, we will create your PSA submission. You can use the website or mobile app. I prefer doing this on my desktop. Goto PSAcard.com and create an account. I’m not going to cover pricing too much as you can find the most recent prices on PSAs website. They tend to run specials so look out for those where there is only a 10 or 15 card minimum, or cheaper pricing.

After you sign up for PSA, click the blue “SUBMIT” button.

Select “Trading Cards” and hit Continue.

Select “Grading” and hit Continue.

Other options are available then just grading. If you have an autographed card, you may want to add that. You can request PSA to review a previous grade if you think its worthy of a bump up. You can do a “Crossover” which is a re-holdering service if it’s a different grading company. “Reholder” is the same thing but for old PSA slabs to take advantage of new slab technology.

PSA offers different submission tiers based on the card’s value and the turnaround time. Most of the time I’m doing Value Bulk submissions. That means $15 a card, lower than $200 value, and a minimum of 20 cards.

If you have a card that grades well and is over your $200 limit, PSA could up charge you. At this point I’m convinced that you should send pretty much any card worth $500 raw at the bulk value tier. If you have an expensive raw card like $500+ then I’d get the grader notes if you’re going for the 10. I’ve tried multiple times submitting the card at regular and express levels with no luck in getting grade bumps. My thought it was a pay to play game with PSA but at this point I’m convinced it’s just the grader you get regardless of tier. It almost seems like bulk is the way to go in almost all cases because the grader is rushed with so many cards to churn through.

As of now, the pricing tiers are as follows (please check PSA’s website for the most current information):


  • Value Bulk: For cards valued under a certain amount, with the longest turnaround time. Usually, 30 to 60 days to get your cards back. The value of the card must be under $200.
  • Regular: You’ll get your cards back in 10 days. Covers up to $1,500 per card.
  • Express: 5 days and covers up to $2,500. This tier and above come with grader notes.

There are a few higher tiers then this but those are more for huge value cards 10k+. 

Select “Trading Card Game (TCG) and Non-Sports Bulk” unless there is a special that fits your submission. Sometimes they run specials on certain card games or all TCGs. The value bulk (year) ones are referring to sports cards so you’ll need the TCG option.

All of PSAs current specials can be found at https://www.psacard.com/specials 

Pay attention to the “Item Minimum” per service type. For their $15 per card rate, you must submit at least 20 cards or more.

Looking up your cards on PSA

 Entering your cards into PSA is an important step because the label you select is what it will say when you get back your cards. If you mis-label something , they usually catch it. However when it comes to “error” labels that PSA has, you MUST lookup the error label name and select that. If you fail to find the label that says the error, they will grade it as a normal card. An example is, you have a double holo error shining magikarp. If you submitted that card as a normal shining magikarp, it will come back with a normal label. The grader most likely won’t catch the error and correct the label for you. You have to be proactive and ensure the card names you input are as accurate as possible.

With the mobile app, you can scan your cards into your submission. The card scanning feature is pretty accurate, but I do my submissions on my desktop computer which doesn’t have that feature. When searching for your card manually, there have been some tricks I’ve learned about trying to find the right label.

Vintage Holo Cards

Type the name of the Pokemon then put “-holo” at the end in one word. Then put the number of the card in the set. Ex. “Charizard-holo 4”.

Modern Cards

 

Look up the modern card by name and the number on the card.

Finding certain cards can be challenging at times. Take this example where I try to find this “Honey” pokemon card from the Chilling Reign set. I look up “honey 192” but nothing comes up. At this point I usually go to ebay and try to find a slab with the card and use the label to find the card.

You can also search by set name and card number. This is another helpful way to find your card.

Japanese/Foreign Cards

For Japanese cards, I usually goto ebay first and search the term “pokemon Japanese” with the card number. That will pull up the name of the pokemon and then you can search that in PSA.

Once you checkout, there will be a button to print your PSA submission packet.

Shipping your order

These are my steps for getting everything ready for shipping. Click here to see PSA official shipping instructions.

Review that you have your cards in the correct order.

If you fail to have the card in the order as they are on the sheet, a surcharge will be added. You’ll probably piss the grader off too cause now he’s gotta go fix your mistake. What is on this sheet will be the label it gets. If you have an error card; make sure you selected the label with that error in the name. If you put that error card in with the normal label (without the error in the name), it will be graded as such. If you messed up your order, don’t worry. You can always go back and edit it before you ship it. Just make sure to reprint your submission packet and throw away the old one.

Get a Card Saver and some sturdy cardboard. Cut to about the size of the card saver. Make 2 pieces.

Put the stack of cards in between the two pieces of cardboard.

Use two rubber bands to secure the bundle together.

Wrap in bubble wrap and secure with another rubber band. Avoid using tape for packing the internals.

 

Find an empty box that will fit your submission. I use PSA boxes from my previous submission boxes. I don’t think that effects graders decisions but some brownie points maybe. Take your two PSA copies you printed and grab your submission. Wrap them with bubble wrap or paper. Pack the box with paper/bubble wrap so your items don’t shift around in the box.

Use a colored duct tape on your shipment. This isn’t required but PSA recommends it.

For expensive or sentimental cards, I would ship USPS Registered Mail – Just pack your stuff and don’t tape the box closed. Goto the mailbox and they will give you special tape to seal the box up completely. All seams on the box must have tape over them for registered mail.

For all of my other bulk submissions, I usually send it priority mail with USPS click and ship. I honestly don’t insure or require signature anymore. In all my box shipments, I’ve never had an issue (knock on wood) so I’ve just opted to save the money and take the risk. Only case were I will insure it and require signature is if the cards I’m submitting belong to others.

The address to ship it to PSA will be in your instructions. The address varies based on the shipping carrier you are using. PSA offers discounted Fedex labels right through the website but I personally like using USPS.

After putting your shipping label on the box, you will need to put one more label on the side of the package for the PSA order barcode. In your PSA submission packet, you’ll see the barcode to cut out that looks like this:

Cut this out and tape it to the side of the box. Don’t tape over the barcode.

Now go ship it! I either drive to the post office to get a receipt of drop-off or use Schedule a Pickup with USPS where they will stop by the house to pick the shipment up next day.

With your cards shipped, we must wait… This is the most nail-biting part of the process. You can watch the progress of your PSA order but logging into your PSA account, hover over your profile icon and click Orders. Click your order and you’ll see a status like this:

You can see here my order is in the Assembly step. PSA will usually have your order sit for a few days until it goes to “Research and ID”. This usually is done in a week and you’ll be able to see scans of your card pre-grading. Then in grading is where it usually spends the longest time sitting in. After 2-4 weeks, it should most past grading into Assembly. That’s pretty quick and it goes through a QA Check phase where another grader audits the card and grade. After that step, it gets packed and shipped back. What is cool is at the last step of this, you can see you’re grades online or with the PSA Mobile app. The PSA Mobile app provides a really cool reveal experience.

Looking at your graded cards

Once you get your cards back, I normally like to get slab sleeves and add some protection to them. One thing when I started grading that I want to point out is inside the slab, there is a little white square that may look like it’s on your card. When I first seen this, I thought they damaged my card but when the card slides around, I noticed it was on the slab. I’ll add a picture at some point of what I mean by this.

Cracking Slabs & Resubmitting

 PSA has a “reconsideration” service where you can send a graded card back to them if you don’t agree with the grade. Don’t do this unless you’re really scared of cracking the slab and got other professional opinions that it was mis-graded. I’ve sent in a double holo magikarp for this review service and it got the same grade. I prefer cracking and resubmitting because it puts the guessing work back on the grader rather than them having a previous grade number in their head.

If you are trying to get a 10 and you got back a 9 from PSA then it may be worth cracking the slab and resubmitting it back to PSA. Depending on the cost to regrade and price difference between a 9 and 10 will dictate if it is worth resubmitting. Most 9s that look perfect usually have a corner on the back slightly coming up. I’d avoid cleaning the card and just focus on flattening the card. As careful as you think you are, cleaning the card will still leave some micro-scratching in some cases.

However, let’s say you have a card that has some damage and you’re guessing it gets a PSA 7 because of a small indent but you see that the holo is perfect, no scratches, corners/centering are great, etc. In this case I would consider one of two paths. If the card isn’t worth gambling on another regrade with PSA, then getting a Beckett grade and paying for the sub-grade labels will help highlight the card is super clean. The other option is to crack it and resubmit to PSA.

Contacting PSA

Don’t email PSA or use their contact form. You’re better off calling them if you have any questions.

PSA Phone Number : 1 (800) 325-1121

If you email PSA asking why you got a low grade, you’ll get this canned response.

We understand the desire to know the “why” behind a grade. Comparing your card to a picture online can be an instinctive response, but there are a lot of things that you simply can’t see via images. Keep in mind that grading is three-dimensional, meaning that images flatten defects. There are many types of defects that, in order to see them, you must be able to move, tilt, and rotate the cards. Along with moving the cards to view them at multiple angles, lighting also plays a huge part in being able to see tiny defects. When reviewing your card, try putting your card in a low, single-light setting in a dark room, since bright lights can often “blow out” imperfections.

You may also find it interesting to learn that grades do not average out. If you have corners that meet the criteria of a 6, but you have a surface that meets the criteria of an 8 – your card would be a 6. It does not average out to a 7. You’re welcome to review our grading standards here, but please keep in mind that in the end, the final grade is at the discretion of our experts.

While providing a detailed report regarding the result is not a part of our services, please be assured that your cards are always seen by a minimum of two independent graders and that their results must match before the order can be completed.

Conclusion

Submitting your Pokémon cards to PSA for grading can be a rewarding process, but it requires careful preparation and attention to detail. By following this comprehensive guide, you can maximize your chances of achieving the highest grades possible for your cards. Remember to stay updated with PSA’s guidelines and pricing, as they can change over time.

If you have any questions, reach out to me on Instagram @PokeMasterCenter or email me at PokeMasterCenter@gmail.com

I’m also looking for feedback, input, and changes that make this one of the most detailed guides out there. Please reach out to me if you think I missed something or have opinions on some of the statements I’ve made.

Happy collecting and grading!

For the most current information, always refer to PSA’s official website: PSA Card.

PSA Lingo (Glossary)

https://www.psacard.com/resources/lingo

Error Cards

https://www.cgccards.com/news/article/9851/error-card-types/

https://www.psacard.com/info/tcg/pokemon-error-guide